Detroit Free Press Lansing Bureau

LANSING — An additional $400 million plus for Michigan’s crumbling roads received broad and bi-partisan support Thursday in the state House of Representatives.

Many lawmakers hailed the bills as a good first step toward an estimated $1.2 billion in annual needs to fix Michigan’s’s winter-weary roads.

“This is a great step in Michigan and the first step in fixing a decades old problem,” said state Rep. Marilyn Lane, D-Fraser.

But some Democrats said the bills not only don’t go far enough, but also ignore sound transportation policy. They offered amendments that would require road agencies to fix existing roads and not invest in new lanes or thoroughfares across the state and invest some of the new road money into public transit. Neither amendment passed.

“The headline tomorrow will be ‘Congrats, the Legislature kicked the can down the road,’” said state Rep. Sam Singh, D-East Lansing. “We have a $2 billion problem and this package may get us to $450 million. But since when do we think a 25% solution is good.

The bills will:

■ Earmark 1 percentage point of the 6% use tax collected by the state for transportation funding purposes, bringing in $249.2 million in the fiscal year that begins Oct. 1. In addition, the portion of the state’s 6% sales tax on gasoline that went into the general fund will shift to roads, bringing in an estimated $135 million in the 2014-15 fiscal year.

■ Doubles the fines for overweight trucks and sharply increases the permit fees for trucks to carry overweight loads. A total estimated increase in revenues wasn’t available, but the increase in permit fees is expected to see $11.1 million in estimated revenues, up from the $4.3 million that was generated in fees during the 2012-13 fiscal year. The maximum fines for overweight and oversized trucks would in crease to $500.

■ Require competitive bidding and warranties on state and local road projects.

■ Repeal the $.19 cents per gallon sales tax on regular gas and $.15 cent per gallon tax on diesel gas and replacing it with a 6% wholesale tax on gas.

■ Create a multi-tiered system of registration fees based on the age and weight of cars. The system will not have much of an impact on most drivers.

Armed with polls that showed public support for more revenues for roads and complaints from constituents about cars being torn apart by growing potholes, House Republicans introduced the package of bills in early April and got them out of committee and passed in less than a month. which is highly unusual in Lansing today.

“We’re maybe batting .250 on this, but that’s better than batting zero, said state Rep. Earl Poleski, R-Jackson. “We’re prepared now to dedicate the dollars to the roads.”

Gov. Rick Snyder has been calling on the Legislature for the last two years to make the big investment in roads, including increasing taxes and fees to raise the $1.2 billion a year he said is needed to bring Michigan’s roads back into decent shape. But legislators had resisted putting up substantial dollars. That changed when the remains of the latest wicked winter season thawed, revealing just how bad the roads have gotten in the last decade.

He said the House package is a good first step.

“The House package reflects a serious commitment to tackling this issue. It continues the critical dialogue as we work together to reach the ultimate solution that includes a stable, sufficient, long-term funding source,”Snyder said in a statement Thursday. “It’s important to keep this momentum alive and the efforts of our House partners do just that.”

The bills now move to the Senate, where Republicans also are crafting bills that could bring more tax revenue to the state to fix the roads.”